Ephesians 2:8-10: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith– and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God–not by works , so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
I decided to start off my blog this week by emphasizing Ephesians 2:8-10 as it speaks volumes to me in the realm of how God values us. As of lately I have been continuously going back to this verse when I read my bible, as every time I feel as though I learn something new or get a different outlook on life. It explains to me that I cannot earn salvation but instead it has been freely given to me. But how? How is this possible that God would give me salvation? That he would look down on me with pleasure and would see past my shortcomings and call me His son? I seriously have to admit that my life is not perfect and that I mess up and I mess up often. I am in no shape or in right standing to even be accepted and loved by a perfect God.
But there is good news: Jesus–God’s one and only Son. He came into this world, showed us how to live and died as a perfect sacrifice on a cross taking all our faults, failures and more importantly our sins with Him. He did this so that we could have a relationship with God the Father, so that we could have salvation.
Now I don’t mean to sound all “religious” if you will, but the point I am trying to make here is that Jesus was completely perfect, had the power to do whatever He wanted, but yet He still willingly chose to die a gruesome death of crucifixion on a cross for me a sinful undeserving man. Why? Why would anyone do that? The answer is simple, because He knew I was worth dying for. He knew that we all were worth dying for, that we needed salvation, that we needed to know who Christ was. I don’t know about you but I seriously think this is awesome! This speaks to me that God actually values me, that I am worth something to Him, that all of us are worth something. As the bible passage above explains, “you have been saved through faith–and this it not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” Through Jesus Christ dying we have received the gift of salvation, we all have been given value and purpose by God.
As the title of this blog explains I want to share with you all how God’s value on my life has helped me with the view and use of pornography. Through understanding my own value, realizing ways to share that value, and understanding value in others I must say that pornography really isn’t an option for me anymore. I guess you could say that through understanding God’s value on my life I have realized how I see and value other people, even those involved in pornography. Let me explain what I have learned:
1. Knowing Your Own Value:
As I explained before in the previous paragraphs, Jesus died so that we could live and obtain salvation, and I believe God placed value on us because of it. This means we have potential to do something amazing. If God the creator of the universe, creator of heaven and earth sent His Son to die for us then wouldn’t you agree that we are all worth something to Him? Ofttimes I believe that we as people do not realize how important we are to the world around us, that we are significant, that we have a purpose for being here and living. We need to realize that we have value and something to give no matter how big or small. No matter where you are at in life, no matter how many times you’ve messed up or how many times you’ve succeeded, know there is purpose in your life. Once you realize your own value you’ll start seeing it in others– which leads to my next point:
2. Understanding Value in Others:
Like previously stated, once you understand that you have value it will help you identify value in others. I believe that all people have value, that we are all meant to do great things. Disagree with my if you will, but I believe everyone has the potential to leave an impact on this world, but through the trials and difficulties of life I believe some people do not get the option to do so or they have to settle for something less. The question that I ask within this subtopic is: how do you see other people? The best example I can give for understanding value in others is this:
I once talked to a guy who made a profession in selling things on eBay, and believe it or not he made pretty good money doing it. What he would do was go into antique shops, secondhand stores, Goodwill, etc. and find items that had been recently donated to these places. He would sift through all the junk within these places and look up certain things on his phone that caught his eye to see if they were worth anything. Most of the time in the junk he would find something valuable that he could clean up and sell on the internet, bringing real meaning to the term, “one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure” (or something like that). He became successful doing this because he knew how to see value in the things that no one else saw. If people knew the value of the objects they were giving away, do you really think they would have donated them? Of course not. After hearing this man’s story I can’t help to use the same principle in relating to people. Even though people can be covered in junk there is always value hidden underneath it all, you just have to be willing to look for it.
Understanding the value in people is what really resonates in my mind when it comes to the concept of viewing pornography and how God has changed my view about it. I can remember the times where I wanted to view pornography but just couldn’t bring myself to it as I realized that the people in front of the cameras are actually people, that God loves them and there is a value placed upon their lives. I have to ask, “why are these people doing this? Do they really want to be in a career of sex and pornography?” I remember a message preached by Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Church. His message was titled, “The Porn Path,” (I highly recommend listening to it) and within his message he interviewed a former porn star by the name of Crissy Moran. She had described how she was sexually molested as a child and learned to disassociate from the reality of what was happening to her (she would later use these feelings while she was doing porn to escape the reality of what was going on). She had been subjected to abuse from boyfriends, and even had gone through the debilitating process of abortions. She later explained that she had self-esteem issues as he father was abusive. She wanted to be accepted and be told that she was beautiful–this is how she originally gotten into the porn industry. From her testimony I learned that there is so much that these porn stars have gone through, and there is the reoccurring theme of being broken. I am not saying that this is the case for all porn stars, but what I am saying is that in the idea of viewing pornography I had to ask myself, “why are these people doing this?” There is so much more going on than what we see on the screen or in a picture. These people are broken, they have had difficult pasts and honestly I don’t believe these women and men want to be doing porn for a career. For me, once I understood the value that God has placed on people it sickens me to even think of the idea of porn and the people that are involved in it. These people who are in front of the camera still have value and God loves them, but the place they are at devalues them for another person’s pleasure. I think we need to understand that these people are ACTUALLY people and NOT objects, they need to be valued more than just sexual pleasure for the viewer. Referring back to my whole eBay/antique shop example before, porn stars still have value even though they are surrounded by the junk of the porn industry, but do we the viewers want to understand that?
In closing, I must say that this is my personal testimony on how my view has been changed by God’s love and how the value on my life has changed my view of others. I believe that if the world truly found a way to value people, even porn stars, then a lot of things would be different in our world. I believe that the porn industry is not a place to foster value for the people who are in it or who are viewing it. I understand that we all have a purpose and the idea of a man or a woman succumbing to the broken life of pornography is really not in the best interest of their purpose. People who do pornography have so much value as people, but they’re in a place that takes away and robs them of that value. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to take part in supporting that even if it is just watching.